


Echolocation

by aguwustdick (sugandrew), beary_scary



Series: A Simple Spoonful [4]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: And loves him, Bat the Cat, Coffee Shops, Five meets a cat, Five needs a hug, Friendship, Honey is amazing, Honey's version of meet the family, I love her, Katie is amazing, Klaus and Allison are only in the end, Meet Honey's roommate, One Second, PURELY PLATONIC, Protective Klaus Hargreeves, Proud Ben Hargreeves, Swearing, and you will see her again, her name is Katie, is meet my cat, its like, soon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-28
Updated: 2019-03-28
Packaged: 2019-12-25 21:24:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18269588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sugandrew/pseuds/aguwustdick, https://archiveofourown.org/users/beary_scary/pseuds/beary_scary
Summary: Honey wants to introduce Five to someone important to her.AKAOur local old man meets his cat version.





	Echolocation

Five and Honey had been friends for a few weeks now, and there was no time that she looked at him and didn’t think of her roommate’s cat, Bat. Now, Honey’s roommate is a sweetheart, that’s mostly why she decided to give her the kitten, because she was around a thousand times more responsible than her, but she still got attached to the beast. Katie and Honey could be really good friends if they tried, the thing is that they didn’t, and at some point they were okay with that.

As they routines almost never matched, they left little sticky notes on the door of the fridge if they needed anything from the grocery store or something, even though most of them said ‘Have a good day! :)’. They really could be good friends if they tried.

 

Honey didn’t call the mansion if she could avoid it, mostly because they talked to her like she was a ghost or something. Nobody gets calls, Five is not that special, leave him alone. With that in mind she decided to propose the idea to him in one of her afternoon shifts. Luckily, or unluckily, for her, the old man-child came through the door of the coffee shop and sat down in his favourite stool right in front of her. She smiled, pretending she wasn’t as insecure as she was. Her friend’s face revealed that she had failed. 

“Hello, buddy.” She greeted him.

“Don’t call me that.” He replied. “Hello.” He said, after a pause.

“Hey, I don’t want you to feel forced to say yes, because maybe it’s too much or maybe you don’t want to I just want you to know that it’s okay if you don’t want to--” Honey started to ramble until Five interrupted her.

“Jesus Christ, what is it?” Honestly, he was lowkey terrified. It was the first time she looked shy after the day they started talking, which was a good two months ago. What the hell was making her so insecure?

“Do you want to meet my roommate’s cat?” She said in one breath, then looked away. 

He sat there for a second, processing what she just said.  _ This _ was what was making her so nervous? She made the first steps in their friendship almost without a doubt and introducing him to a  _ cat _ was what made her anxious?

Obviously, his friend took that as a rejection and cleared her throat. “It’s okay, really, I didn’t think you’d want to anyways.” 

“I didn’t say  _ anything _ , Honey.” He said, faking annoyance. “Yes, I want to meet your roommate’s cat. And  _ what do you mean _ with ‘I didn’t think you’d want to’?” The college student almost loses it “Your face is gold, can I take a picture?”

His expression contorted in exasperation. 

“What’s wrong with my  _ face _ ?” Honey didn’t answer, instead she clapped her hands and said.

“Okay, when my shift ends, I'll take you to my apartment.” 

He nodded and took the cup of coffee that she left in front of him with her usual smile before leaving to do her job. 

When the clock rang to signal the end of her shift he got up and started to the door as she hung her apron and said hello to the barista that was going to replace her. He waited for her by the entrance and they left together. 

“Come on, let’s take the subway.” Five nodded, hands in the pockets of his shorts and walked by her side. A part of him wanted to make fun of her for being his same height, but he decided against it. 

It was the first time he saw the subway working. After the apocalypse this one was one of the places that remained almost intact, people died of suffocation, and their bodies were there, laying down lifeless right where he was standing. He blinked, and when he opened his eyes they were there. It was surrounded by corpses, there were ashes and dust everywhere. A voice called him. 

“Five.” Honey said, shaking him as softly as she could. “Hey, buddy, come back.” Suddenly, the people around him were breathing, alive. “It’s okay, come on, everything is fine.” She didn’t know what happened to him, and asking didn’t even cross her mind. He was thankful. They got in a subway car and Honey started to talk to distract him.

“I was the one that found Bat, but I wasn’t responsible enough at the time to take care of another life besides mine, and as you can see, I’m not that good with that either.” She chuckled. “He was eating trash from the floor when I saw him. He was so small and scared, yet he pretended he was fine.” She laughed again. “He was so weak that he couldn’t even fight me when I picked him up and wrapped him in my jacket.” She stopped and pointed at her outfit. “This one.” Five nodded to show he was paying attention, and his friend looked nervously to her side. “I took him to the vet as fast as I could.” She wasn’t smiling anymore. “He had an infection in his eye. It got really bad. Too bad. They wanted to put him down, but I refused, so they took away his right eyeball. That’s why I called him Bat. Because he’s blind.” 

“You know that most bats aren’t actually blind, don’t you?” Five said, almost smiling.  _ Almost. _

“Shut up, nerd.” She said, softly pushing his shoulder. She looked to the side again. There was a man staring at her. It looked like he had been enjoying the view for a while now, and the old man-child wasn’t having it. 

“What are you looking at, fucking creep?” He said, his voice loud enough to let the man know he was talking to him.

“ _ Five _ .” Honey whispered. 

After ignoring her pleads he decided to start a staring contest with the failure of a person that was making his friend nervous. The creep looked away and Five redirected his gaze back to the college student. “What?”

“ _ Why did you do that? _ ” She kept her voice low and frenetic, still altered over the interaction. 

“He was bothering me.” But Honey saw right through him.

“Sure, chief.” She ruffled his hair, and he didn’t smile.

When they got to her apartment, she yelled her roommate’s name to see if she was home, which she was. Great. Five could see his friend’s head frantically thinking of an explanation for why she brought a thirteen year old kid to her dorm. 

“This is my friend’s brother, he asked me to take care of him because he’s busy today.” Katie nodded, without asking any questions. 

“Hi, my name is Katie, nice to meet you.” Five stopped working for a second before reacting and shaking her hand. 

“His name is Timmy, and he’s pretty shy.”  _ Timmy _ . He was going to  _ murder _ her. 

“Nice to meet you too.” He said, unwillingly keeping his act. 

 

“ _ Timmy _ ?” he whispered-screamed. Honey replied with a laugh. 

“You look like a Timmy.” She said, eyes shining with tears.

“I don’t.” The college student stopped laughing and her expression went serious.

“Are you okay? What happened over there?”

“Yeah.” He thought about it for a second. It was okay to tell her. She would understand. “Nobody ever said that it was ‘Nice meeting me’. It was always ‘I can’t believe I’m meeting you’, ‘Enjoy your stay’ or ‘it’s a pleasure meeting you’. It was never just...nice.” His friend looked sad. It was weird to see her like that. 

“You’re going to be the death of me, kid.” She slowly smiled. “Nice to meet you, even though I met you weeks ago.” She extended her hand and he shook it. Her smile grew. 

Something started to scratch the door and a black cat entered the room like it was his. He had an eye patch on his right side. “Do you like the patch? I made it for him.” 

“Yeah, it’s something.” He said, indifferent. 

Bat jumped on the bed where he was sitting and just. 

Nudged him.

Honey snorted. “Pet him, you idiot.” So Five did it.

The cat was having the time of his life until he wasn’t and bit the old man-child’s finger. 

He didn’t even react. The part time barista raised her eyebrows and took a little cat toy, giving it to her friend. “He wants to play.” 

They quietly looked at the cat jump around, chasing the little bird that Five was controlling. Then Honey smiled.

“What if the egg came first but it was actually full of snot.” The kid stopped looking at the cat to stare at the college student who was looking back at him. 

“That doesn’t make any sense.” He said, sounding personally attacked, distractedly waving the little stick around. 

“Ok, what if the chicken was first, but it had human arms instead of wings.”

“That’s even worse!” He exclaimed in disgust and she laughed. 

She left for a few minutes to bring him a cup of coffee and pretended she didn’t see that he was still playing with Bat. 

In the end, Honey got too into the debate to keep saying her nonsense, and neither of them noticed the sun going down until the room was too dark to see without a lamp. 

“Oh shit.” She muttered, looking at the clock. “It’s late.”

“I’ll teleport home, don’t worry.” Five said, pretending he wasn’t scared of the danger he was putting himself into.

“Oh no you’re not.” His friend’s voice was flat. This is not up to discussion. “I’m taking you home.”

“I can take the subway alone, thank you very much.” Honey’s eyes melted just a little, but her tone remained severe.

“Number one, the last time you took the subway, which was approximately five hours ago you looked so pale I thought you were going to pass out, number two, we’re not taking the subway.”

“Then how the fuck are we going to go back to the mansion, walking?” The college student snorted and threw a helmet at him. 

“What do you think I am, kid?” She looked confident, maybe _ too confident _ . 

When he saw the red piece of junk he knew he was right. 

“Since when do you have a motorcycle and why don’t you go to work with it?”

“Gas is expensive, sweetie.”  _ Don’t call me that _ . “Come on.” She sat down and patted the leather seat behind her. He reluctantly climbed behind her. “Hold yourself, I was told I’m not the best driver.” The last part was muffled by both his helmet and the roar of the engine coming to life. 

Then Honey sped  _ the fuck _ up. Five could feel her stomach shaking as she laughed, but it stopped when he squeezed tighter. He was not having a good time. “Hey, chief. We’re home.” That was his cue to let go of her poor stomach. “I thought you were going to break my ribs, Jesus.” Her voice became clearer as he took off his helmet. “Are you okay?” Worry tinted her words.

“I’m never getting on this motorcycle with you ever again.” She ruffled his hair. 

“I’m sorry, buddy.” She said, chuckling.

“What’s with all the noise?” Allison said opening the door. Honey tensed until a familiar head appeared over the woman’s shoulder.

“Hey, Honey! I didn’t know you had a motorcycle!” A smile appeared on her face.

“Hi Klaus! I don’t really use it, it’s for emergencies, or when I’m too lazy to take the subway. Fuel is not exactly cheap.” Number Four nodded, with fake seriousness. 

By that point the entire family was at the door, looking at the pair with curious eyes. 

“Well, I have to go.” His friend said, grabbing the helmet. “Goodnight, Five” She said, smiling.

“Goodnight, Honey.” He replied, with a tiny smile. Her eyes shone as the put on the helmet and climbed to the motorcycle. 

He stared at her silhouette as she sped the fuck out of there.

After he made sure that his mask was tight and wasn’t going to slip out with any of the questions his siblings were going to ask he got into the mansion. 

Just as he expected, the second the door closed he got showered with demands for explanations. Who is she, why did she bring you home, she’s a lot older than you, what the fuck? (She’s  _ younger _ by the way.) 

It was overwhelming even for him, and he almost runs away before a voice took over the interrogation, “Guys, leave him alone! That woman drives like crazy, his stomach must be a mess right now and you’re just stressing him more!” Nobody could believe what they were seeing, Klaus defending Five? 

A face that only the, now-sober, Number Four could see smiled and looked at his brother with pride.

Ben. 


End file.
